Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The Devil is the Enemy of all Humanity - Holy Quran, verse 2:168

The lovely thing about religion is that you (should) develop a personal and intimate relationship with your Maker, aka Allah aka God Almighty, Most Compassionate(ar-Rahman) and Most Merciful (ar-Rahim). The only problem is that because your spirit is presently residing in your ego-body and in this ego-reality, your ego can be prone to think only your perception of Who God is and What He is to be the only valid truth of God. And this is simply wrong. And let me tell you why...

God in his essence is unknowable. According to Muslim Lore, God has indeed defined Himself as without limit and cannot be wholly comprehended by the human intellect. In this context all Muslims, when they approach the reality of His Essence, becomes essentially Agnostics. This is what my brother observes, and I cannot disagree with him. So Muslims the world over should be minded to behave with a bit of humility in the absolute uniqueness and unknown quantity and quality that is God. So no going about making fun, ridiculing or insulting the other faiths and religions of mankind.

Knowledge of God is without limit. But God being the All-Friendly and Best-Buddy nulli secundus (second to none), also wants you to get to know Him. That is after all, the entire point of creation. Ibn Arabi commented of the reason behind creation and quoted God, "I was a Hidden Jewel, and I wanted to be known." So get ye down unto Earth with humility and start learning. And this learning process is coming from the infinite ocean of knowledge of God that He deigns to release to humanity. So it is a learning of a lifetime, yes?

Mr. Global Enemy. As we are on this topic of God, I also wanna mention a bit about the Devil. You know, sometimes I observe that our religious pride also take a distorted manifestation when we even want to OWN the Devil. I am saying this because some Muslims appear to take the view that the Devil is the eternal enemy of Muslims alone. But that is simply not true... for God was addresing all humanity when he said,

O mankind! Eat of that which is lawful and wholesome in the earth, and follow not the footsteps of the devil. Lo! he is an open enemy for you. (Quran verse 2:168, Marmaduke Pickthall)

Yet seldom have I heard conventional preachers rail against the Devil as enemy of all humanity. It's all about us, us, us Muslims. The Devil wants to corrupt 'us Muslims'! The Devil wants to misguide 'us Muslims' to stray from religion. The Devil are using the Jews, the Christians, the Hindus, the Freemasons, the Illuminatis, the Sufis, the bankers, McDonald, Facebook etc ... (just key-in your favourite Devil-conspirators here) to destroy us Muslims!

Good grief.

Broad generalization of this nature is not worthy of us, sunshine. Let us assume, just as an example, that indeed the Devil has tricked and is using the the McDonald franchise to help create his world domination. But the shareholders of McDonald are also children of Adam and Eve. They are also a part of humanity. A part of us.

Do we cut out a limb because it is injured? No, we try to heal it. And who knows if we ourselves are not being duped by the Devil... Certainty is not with us, after all. Certainty is only in the divine presence of God and in the loving embrace of His prophet, Muhammad Habibullah (pbuh).

So, our thought for today - A little bit more understanding, and empathy for your fellowmen. As Muslims are you not favoured already by the attendance of Muhammad (pbuh) unto your welfare? If you have at least some faith in the Prophet(pbuh), you would have no problem showing a bit of tolerance and sympathy to other people... If you find it difficult, then my advice is to re-look where you are drinking your Islam from.